For over 100 years, the Catholic Charities of Boston has provided loving homes for children by finding adoptive parents for them. Because of disputes about gay parents, they have decided to stop providing adoption services at all.

The social welfare organization, Catholic Charities of Boston, has decided to end its adoption program on the grounds that if they comply with Massachusetts law allowing for gay parents to adopt children that they will violate Church teachings.

Ironically, the mission statement for the organizations is:
"The mission of Catholic Charities is to build a just and compassionate society rooted in the dignity of all people."

Apparently “all people” doesn't include some of "God's children" who are gay parents. Moreover, it appears that the justice of providing compassion and dignity to children needing adoption has vanished.

Interestingly, the Board of Trustees for this organization contains individuals who are from companies and firms that don't exactly have the ideal profile of the good corporate citizen, or especially the good Christian corporate citizen. Figures, doesn't it? By what moral authority do they speak about Catholic issues and "charity?" Does sanctimonious come to mind?

This is the same church that knowingly protected pedophile priests. For accuracy, a pedophile is a psychopath that preys on children. A gay person is someone who has a different sexual orientation. There is considerable difference between the two. Since a number of the clergy have admitted to being gay, it seems ridiculous and sanctimonious for the church to be adopting this cruel stance.

The Board of Trustees for this "charity" is well aware that they are leaving as many as 10,000 children in Massachusetts without hope. Hope is one of the cornerstones of the Catholic Church - too bad for the children. They are just "collateral damage" in this war of words among mostly white men, who live the lives of princes, and not the lives of poverty and chastity that they vowed to live.

The outrage is that the same church which protected pedophile priests who harmed children for life, is now acting to harm children further by leaving them out in the cold. This stance does not seem to be consistent with the charity’s mission, nor does it seem very Christian by any measure.

For many Catholics, the institutional church becomes increasingly irrelevant as they grapple with ways to live a Catholic life despite the obvious corruption of the Archdiocese. Unfortunately, a lot of good, passionate clergy, some of whom are gay, are being harmed by "guilt by association."

There are many Catholics working for social justice, ending poverty, stopping torture and ending human rights abuses. Some of these brave people end up being killed for their beliefs in foreign countries as martyrs.

It is these very martyrs who would lead this dysfunctional institution to work for all that Jesus, one of the greatest philosophers, tried so hard to communicate.

Martin Luther who caused a major upheaval in the institutional church was a very devout Catholic, and died a very devout Catholic. It appears that the institutional Church needs another Rev. Martin Luther to provide the moral guidance so obviously lacking in the current leadership of the Catholic Church.

We must not be tempted to blame all priests, all nuns, all brothers. There are many who try day and night to fight for social justice, here and abroad. They live quiet lives toiling every day for what they believe is their mission. See the work being done by courageous Catholics at http://www.paxchristiusa.org/ .

The very patriarchical, hierarchical nature of the institutional Church is where the dysfunction seems most destructive. Do not blame the rank and file clergy who obediently, tirelessly work for social justice and actually follow the great philosophy of Jesus Christ.

One doesn't have to be the slightest bit spiritual, the slightest bit religious to know that Jesus, and other great thinkers, had great wisdom about how to lead lives of compassion, justice, and dignity.

Too bad, the institutional Church doesn't get it.

Meanwhile, what about these poor, lonely, innocent children who did nothing other than to be born into a cruel world made more cruel by very bad decisions??